I Failed Physio..

This is a common phrase we hear people say if they have been referred for a second opinion.

But here’s the thing, most of the time you didn’t fail physio, Physio failed you.. 

Here are some of the common faults I find which doesn’t mean that physiotherapy as a profession is wrong, but just that the plan given to you wasn’t suitable.

Treating symptoms not the cause

This is a huge issue across all therapies. It is very easy to identify someone’s symptoms and create a basic plan to try address them. But a good therapist knows the body is much more complex and pain can easily derive from various parts of the body. Assessments should always be thorough. If you don’t feel like your therapist is really listening to you, it’s a good idea to move on and try someone else. Be your biggest advocate! 

Lack of confidence in the therapist/therapy plans

This is one of the most common reasons. As a client you are placing a large deal of trust in the therapist to listen to you, understand the problem the provide an effective plan. If there are personality clashes, lack of clear communication in both directions or they provide a plan that goes against your expectations trust can erode. We have plenty of evidence showing client expectations play a significant role in outcomes. So as soon as there are negative thoughts about the plan progress can be limited. You should speak to your therapist about any of these thoughts and if you don’t feel heard, consider a second opinion.

Therapy plan not diverse enough

Some therapists have a stronger skill set in either hands on or exercise prescription and their management plan can be biased by this. When there is a plateau or lack of expected progress they don’t have the ability to try other approaches to help you break through, or the confidence to bring someone else into the the care team to help. We ensure that this never happens and we are constantly up-skilling in all areas. 

Poor goal setting

At the very start of treatment clear goals and expectations should be outlined and agreed by both parties. They should also be centred towards the clients desired outcome. Ie- I want to play tennis weekly, I just want to pick up my daughter pain free, etc. If the therapy plan isn’t working towards these the client can see the whole outcome as a failure despite potential progress in other areas like range and strength that the physio has deemed as important. The responsibility here lies on both parties to come to the table and openly communicate goals and expectations. 

Under loading

This again is a chronic problem and we have a good body of evidence showing that Physio’s under load their clients during rehab. Therabands can be acceptable in the early phases for light loading and when access to better rehab facilities are limited. But for a lot of injuries body weight and banded exercises won’t be enough to fully improve symptoms. A number of clinics don’t have great gym set ups or they don’t encourage their clients to gain gym memberships to undertake their rehab. We have set up our clinic to make sure we have access to state of the art equipment, we work closely with personal trainers and strength and conditioning coaches to make sure your program will develop the gains needed and personally have a great deal of experience training in a gym. 

There are a number of other factors but these to me are the most common faults but also have the biggest impact on outcomes. If you feel like any of the above situations may have happened to you feel free to reach out to see how we can help provide a better solution to getting you back to where you want to be.